Ok one thing I think all plugin developers should know is that you need to build a version of the Gideros Player app for your chosen OS (Android or iOS at present) to test your plugins on a real device.

This post should help with that.

First thing we need to do is create a new project, let’s call it NewGiderosPlayer

Clicking OK on this dialog will create for us an empty project called NewGiderosPlayer.

This is all we need to do from Gideros Studio so now we need to export the project for use with Eclipse (for Android) or Xcode (for iOS).

To do this we need to select File > Export Project… which will bring up the Export Project dialog:

As you can see I am using the Android export so I need to supply a Package Name.

I have called it com.giderosmobile.newgiderosplayer.

Clicking OK will ask you for a folder to place the project into.

This would normally be your Eclipse Workspace folder (as setup when you installed Eclipse).

Once Eclipse has loaded we need to select File > Import… which will bring up the Import dialog:

Select General > Existing Projects into Workspace and click Next.

You will now see the Import Projects dialog.

Click on the Browse button and browse to the folder you exported from Gideros Studio.

Your Export Projects dialog should now look something like this (probably with a different path).

Now just click on the Finish button and the project NewGiderosPlayer will appear in your workspace tree.

If you expand the assets folder you will notice there is another folder named assets.

You need to remove this folder from your project.

Simply right click on the folder and select delete from the menu and the following dialog should appear.

Click on OK and the folder will be deleted. You now have a project to use as your player.

Click on the project in the Package explorer pane and select Project > Clean… which will bring up the clean dialog.

Check the checkbox next to NewGiderosPlayer and click OK. This will automatically create some files required to build the project.

You are now ready to deploy your project to a device (or the Android device simulator)

Now click Run->Run which will build you a NewGiderosPlayer.apk which Eclipse will try and run in the SDK emulator. For our purposes we are not interested in the emulator but the Apk file.

You can now copy this file (which will be in Your Project/bin folder) to your device’s SD card and install it to the device using an app like AppInstaller. Once installed you will have your own personal version of the GiderosPlayer app which you can add your own plugins to for testing on a target device. DO NOT USE THIS METHOD TO GET RELEASE VERSIONS OF YOUR APPS. YOU WILL NEED TO EXPORT A SIGNED VERSION OF THE APP WHICH I WILL TACKLE IN A LATER POST.

Gideros Studio is a free cross-platform mobile development environment developed by Gideros Mobile which provides an intuitive and complete platform to build games on iPhone, iPad and Android easily, with a Flash-like programing interface.

The idea that Gideros Studio is free was something that attracted me to it.

I had tried other cross-platform development environments but all required some form of payment if you wish to publish your app to a marketplace / appstore.

Not so with Gideros Studio. With this IDE I am able to publish my finished app to a marketplace / appstore (with a Gideros Studio splash screen). To remove the splash screen you can purchase an indie license for $149 per year. This is something I intend to do in the near future (possibly sooner if any of the apps I develop using Gideros Studio earn that much money). Even after I have purchased a license I will still display the Gideros splash screen in subsequent apps I release.

The game is a puzzle game where you have to place cheese, mice, cats and dogs on the board to match the required target.

The idea is simple but as the level number increases, so does the difficulty. You start on a 3×3 board and progress to a 7×7 board, always against the clock.

A mouse will become happy if it is closer to more cheese than cats, a cat is happy if it is closer to more mice than cats or dogs and a dog is happy if it is closer to more cats than dogs. The game starts off quite easy with only cheese, mice and cats available but when you complete the 6×6 grid levels then the dog comes into play.

There are 200 levels of increasing difficulty where either the board size increases or the time available decreases.